Sharif Shameem wrote about how the fear of looking stupid kills creative output, and I felt called out. I have drafts on this blog that will never see the light of day because I keep telling myself they’re not good enough.
The funny thing is, I already learned this lesson. During my 28 posts in 28 days challenge last month, the breakthrough was lowering my standards. Not every post needs to be a deep dive. Some of my best writing that month came from just saying what I was thinking without overthinking it. But here I am, a few weeks later, already back to filtering everything.
Sharif’s jellyfish bit is what stuck with me. Evolution produced jellyfish, these weird brainless sacs of jelly that have been around for 500 million years. But it only got there by churning out endless bad mutations without any shame. If evolution could feel embarrassed, life wouldn’t exist.
I keep relearning the same thing: publish more, filter less.